Assisted dying: private hospitals prepare a refusal within their walls
These establishments are adapting so as to be able to refuse that an assisted suicide or euthanasia take place on their premises.
Pierre-Louis Crescitz
france, aide, ehpad, conseil, sant, associatifs, privés, établissements
Key facts
The Health Minister has just confirmed that the assisted-dying law would take effect in January. Hundreds of private or nonprofit hospitals and…
These facilities are adapting so they can refuse to allow an assisted suicide or euthanasia to take place on their premises. At the heart of this…
This option is not unlimited. Under the same decision, it applies only when other facilities can meet local needs.
The Health Minister has just confirmed that the assisted-dying law would take effect in January. Hundreds of private or nonprofit hospitals and nursing homes have already begun substantial groundwork so they can invoke a collective conscience clause and avoid carrying out lethal acts within their walls.
These facilities are adapting so they can refuse to allow an assisted suicide or euthanasia to take place on their premises. At the heart of this preparation is a concrete question: is their charter clearly opposed to deliberately induced death?
This option is not unlimited. Under the same decision, it applies only when other facilities can meet local needs.
Dig deeper
What is an Ehpad?
A residential facility for dependent elderly people, often private or nonprofit, where very frail residents live and where the question of the end of life arises in concrete terms.
What is the assisted dying provided for by the law?
A legal framework that would allow, under certain conditions, assisted suicide or euthanasia, distinct from palliative care and the withdrawal of treatment.
What is a collective conscience clause?
The possibility for a facility to refuse to have lethal acts performed within its walls in the name of its mission or its charter, and not only in the name of an individual caregiver.
Why is the facility’s charter at the center of the debate?
It must clearly show that induced death contradicts the identity and values of the hospital or the Ehpad, a condition for invoking this collective refusal.
Is this right of refusal without limits?
No: it applies only if other facilities can meet local needs, so as not to deprive patients of effective access to the law.